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A.
Acupuncture: A Therapy for High Blood Pressure?
Narrator:
If you're one of the many Americans who suffer from
high blood pressure, you may benefit from acupuncture
treatments. This is Science Today. New research
conducted by cardiologist John Longhurst of the
University of California, Irvine demonstrates that
acupuncture may be useful in lowering blood pressure.
Longhurst:
In our experimental studies we have shown that
it does have the capacity to regulate blood pressure,
particularly if blood pressure is high. Either because
there's some sort of condition like hypertension
or because there's a stress response that increases
blood pressure?
Narrator:
According to Longhurst, the effects of acupuncture
can be long lasting, and the duration of the effects
increase with the number of acupuncture treatments.
Longhurst:
If I perform acupuncture, its effects last for many
minutes, hours sometimes, after I complete the procedure.
And what we've seen is that after the first episode
there's maybe a very slight decrease in blood pressure,
but after two or three times, blood pressure goes
down.
Narrator:
Longhurst has received a two million dollar
federal grant to continue studying acupuncture's
effects on the cardiovascular system. For Science
Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Ancient DNA Mutation May Have a Role in Disease Today
Narrator:
This
is Science Today. Mitochondria are the power plants
of cells - helping control body temperature and the
synthesis of ATP, a chemical form of energy. Researchers
at the University of California, Irvine have discovered
that key mutations in the mitochondrial DNA of migrating
early humans helped them adapt to colder climates
and may even play a role today in why certain people
are prone to certain diseases. Study co-leader Douglas
Wallace, explains mitochondria are the major source
of oxygen radicals in the body.
Wallace:
If your mitochondria are burning very hot and
fast, then all of the calories are going to be making
heat but if they're burning sluggishly, more of the
calorie energy will go up in smoke and you'll get
more oxygen radicals.
Narrator:
Oxygen radicals kill off cells and lead to several
age-related diseases.
Wallace:
So what has been found is that the people with
the mitochondrial DNA lineages that have the tendency
to make more heat, they are protected against Alzheimer's
and Parkinson's disease.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
The Protein Folding Process: Something to 'FRET' About?
Narrator:
This
is Science Today. Illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease
and even some cancers are a result of a protein folding
process gone awry. These proteins are too small to
view using a microscope, so to observe the process,
scientists have long used a method called Forster
Resonance Energy Transfer, or FRET. Physicist Everett
Lipman, of the University of California, Santa Barbara,
used FRET, along with their own innovation, to gain
better insight into how proteins fold.
Lipman:
The thing that we did for the first time - we
used this microfluidic device. It's a set of channels
that have been etched into a little silicon chip and
then a piece of glass is bonded on the top. By using
that little device, we were able to watch the protein
at different times after the folding was started.
Narrator:
Previous experiments could only observe molecules
at random times.
Lipman:
In this mixing device, we mix solutions together at
one end of a big long channel and that starts the
folding reaction. And then as we look at different
places down the channel, we're looking at the proteins
at different times after the folding reaction began
and so we've been able to do a much more controlled
experiment that way.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Understanding Lou Gehrig's Disease, or ALS
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Lou Gehrig's Disease, or
ALS, is a disease in which muscles just stop working
because the nerves responsible for sending signals
to the muscles to contract, die. Don Cleveland, a
professor of medicine at the University of California,
San Diego, describes the process of this progressive
and almost always fatal disease.
Cleveland:
The circuitry for triggering a muscle to contract
begins in the brain as a neuron, an upper neuron has
a process which comes down the spinal cord, interacts
with a second, lower motor neuron and that goes out
traversing through a long course throughout the body
to the target muscles. And whenever either of those
links dies, then you are unable to move the muscles.
Narrator:
Cleveland co-led a study that revealed if surrounding
non-neuronal cells did not have a mutation associated
with ALS, they could protect or rescue affected motor
neurons.
Cleveland:
What we've learned here is that you don't just
have to focus on the neuron in order to be able to
prevent the catastrophe.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Male Biological Clocks Wind Down, Too
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Although men can continue
to father children long after women reach menopause,
research indicates that even the male biological clock
winds down. Andrew Wyrobek of the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory co-led a study of ninety-seven
healthy men, ages 22 through 80.
Wyrobeck:
What we found was that there were small declines in
the amount of semen that was produced. But a tremendous
drop in the motility, or motion, of the sperm. So
the sperm became progressively less motile as the
men aged.
Narrator:
While there have been previous indications of
these age effects in men, most of the studies were
conducted in the clinical population.
Wyrobeck:
I think this study emphasizes the importance of
understanding the father's contribution to a healthy
child. What this study points out is that age is a
contributing factor. We have to now learn more about
whether genetics also contributes, so that if you
are more susceptible to having chromosomally damaged
sperm than somebody else might, we have to understand
that.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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